or the even more comforting third verse,
“The healing of the seamless dress
Is by our beds of pain;
We touch him in life’s throng and press,
And we are whole again.”
Such a study in interpretation will greatly enhance the spiritual values of the hymns to the minister himself, enriching mind and heart. It will make it possible for him to interpret them to his people. To any person the hymn is what he understands it to mean, no more; its effect on him is in due proportion to the completeness of his interpretation of it. The minister, therefore, is in duty bound to supply each singer in his congregation with an accurate and complete understanding of the hymns that are sung.
Making a Hymnal of His Own.
The minister who has given his hymnal the study that has been suggested will wish to garner and organize the materials he has thus won. He will proceed to make a little hymnal of his own by selecting a given number of the hymns that appeal to him—say one hundred—in his regular hymnal. This will constitute his inner hymnal to which from time to time he will make additions.
These hymns will be marked in his own copy of the church hymnal, a wide margined one, or an interleaved one, if it can be secured. As he analyzes each one, finding the joints in its structure, he will indicate the results by lines of division with the proper captions. His dissection of the phrases will disclose more or less obscure allusions needing explanation, like “Siloam’s pool,” “Mt. Nebo’s lonely height,” “Gog and Magog,” “Ebenezer” and many others that convey no meaning to the average mind. These should be underlined for explanation. Some phrases are so suggestive, so packed with meaning, that their value eludes the ordinary singer—for instance, the second verse of Monsell’s “My sins, my sins, my Saviour.” These should be put in quotation marks to remind the preacher to unpack by spirited comment their wealth for the edification of his people.
Numbers referring to his card index or commonplace book will bring to mind helpful facts about the hymn, or its writer, or illustrations that will quicken both mind and heart. Enclosing a verse or verses in brackets will mark those that can be omitted without wrecking the symmetrical progress of the thought. That will eliminate the usual thoughtless phrase, “We will omit the third verse.” If there is a choice of tunes, the most practicable one can be indicated; or a tune better known to the congregation elsewhere in the hymnal may be suggested with its number.